Hi, I know I've mentioned this before but I still can't believe the amazing service from Maranello parts, here in the UK. Ordered front and rear sets of hood lifts for my '86 Testarossa yesterday around 2pm and they arrived today before lunch! Anyway the job of replacing them is really easy. I dont think it's possible to go wrong doing the rear, just make sure you have something to keep the hood up safely when you take each strut off - best to do one at a time too! There was a little plastic clip on the old ones to pull out so the strut can be popped off its ball fittings. Hardest thing can be extending the hood enough to put new strut on as you will never compress them! Everything else is fairly obvious I think. The RHS strut came with its electrical connectors. For the front, raise the hood and make sure its propped up in a failsafe way, raise the headlights, isolate battery, and remove the front plastic headlight surrounds (a couple of screws). You can reach in to remove the front split pin from the strut support pin from between the front of the headlights and the hood, providing your hands aren't massive (which is why you really don't want the hood to come down)! The rear split pin can be reached on the battery side from the battery compartment and by extending the hood fully the strut can easily be pulled off its 2 support pins. It can be a bit tricky to remove this split pin as the brake cooling duct plastic hard pipe is close underneath where the split pin protrudes but the split pin isn't that beefy so can be bent easily with a screw driver and pulled out. The new strut can just be put on the same but may need a bit more wiggling and force to get on in the fully extended position - the far front mount on each side is slightly rounded so easiest to mount strut on the rear pin first so u have a bit more leeway to force the front one on - u can even fit a small pry bar in there and ease it on using fairly light pressure against the frame near the headlight - not the pod itself though! The other side you just remove the a/c rad access cover which is in the same place as the battery cover on the other side (4 bolts) and reach through there. Don't forget to put the split pins in. Anyway half an hour job really and the difference in having nice strong hood struts is much more reassuring when you're working under there! Dom.
Thanks for the tip Dom, ordered a set of front hood lifts for my 1986 Testarossa from them today. David
Cool, hope it goes as easy as it did on mine. Just watch the bodywork if removing those front headlight surrounds. One of those jobs I wonder why I didn`t do years ago - so much hassle every time you lift the hoods if they don`t always stay up on their own! Dom.
